The lot of the modern online journalist is varied. Amongst the odd jobs I undertook when at theage.com.au was a weekly space-filler (for the newspaper!) aiming to promote a tipping competition, a half-hearted response to the runaway success of the opposition’s massively resourced fantasy football product. I decided to have some fun with the potentially boring chore. And for some reason, nobody stopped me.

Here’s a few examples of what they let through the net:

ROUND 12, 2010Look, we’re sick of butchering our tipping opportunities. The effort is there, it’s just that our conversion efficiencies have been sub-standard, numbers-wise. We don’t want to scapegoat individuals, that’s not what we are about as an organisation, but there are VFL tipsters who are pushing up and if our bottom line outcomes in a scoring sense don’t trend upwards, we will be forced to make changes. It’s all about correct tips, that’s the business we’re in, and our group has to face that reality, as individuals, and make that our collective focus. Our frontal pressure and attention to zonal and full press structures have been in the highest percentiles, but we’re just not taking the game on and getting reward for effort, and if you are creating correct tip situations you must convert them into tangible result events. It is not about being obsessed with the scoreboard and the ladder, it is about adhering to the tipping structures and processes that we signed off on as a group. Can I say it any more clearly ? Key desire indicators must be kept at optimum morale quotients. But we also have to get the job done in a realtime, real world sense, in terms of correct tips, and take the responsibility for our actions in the moment. There is the same eight points on offer every week, and going forward from this point, we as a coaching staff don’t resile from that. We just have to be better, and back ourselves in, for our supporters and our sponsors who pay for this shirt with all the logos upon it in a visual sense. That is the sort of organisation we are looking to build.What was the question? No, we don’t ‘read the riot act’ to our tipsters. This is 2010, what do you take us for? We are a professional tipping outfit, that question is an insult to every member of this team who is striving to their uppermost to improve themselves. This press conference is over.

ROUND 15 2011

We had finally tracked down the power behind the infamous Wikifootyleaks website, Lord Surf. His headquarters? A run-down weatherboard granny flat in a nondescript southern suburb. After knocking on the fly-wire door in the demanded code, we were rushed inside by a slight figure wearing a balaclava, dark sunglasses, scarf and Op-shop overcoat into a yellowed room full of computers, radios and televisions. Lord Surf, apparently a young male, was announcing his retirement from the ultra-underground site blamed for many of the most outlandish football accusations of recent seasons. Surf said he had wanted to be a footy journo to begin with, a “Caro or Hutchy”, but a tabloid internship faltered because he was a teetotaller. A subsequent venture as a freelancer was short-lived. Surf exposed his face enough to reveal a shocking scar across his right cheek. “Waverley, 2007. I was mistaken for a forward scout. Talk about unsociable...” Surf subsequently reverted to his true calling, as a nerd, building a software trawler that gathered rumours and circulated them through social media, fan forums and talkback radio. Did he ever now know what was true, amongst all the talk of sex scandals, drug accusations, player signings and league conspiracies? “What’s true is not important,” Surf said. “I have expanded the range of possibilities that the footy public will believe. My work was done when the St Kilda schoolgirl saga became a lie about a lie about a rumour about a lie.”

Lord Surf’s tips for round 15.

Western Bulldogs v MELBOURNE “The Dogs are deciding when to tell their fans they were rebuilding in 2011. They’ve got Obama’s PR experts in to help explain why their leaders raised expectations of a grand final appearance.”

Richmond v CARLTON “Monday, after Carlton’s loss to West Coast, a class action was discussed on behalf of thousands of Blues fans who had taken credit from NT bookies to back the Navys to go back-to-back.”

FREMANTLE v Gold Coast “Suns forward planners have decided to refresh their players with holidays in Disneyland before their two sure wins of 2012 against GWS.”

Essendon v GEELONG “The Dons approached Geelong coach Chris Scott about joining the Bombers coaching bureaucracy as a million dollar ‘recent success consultant’. It is also rumoured that their next major off-field partner will be a Californian company which turns household rubbish into a viable energy source.

Adelaide v SYDNEY “Shane Mumford is going to splash some smelling salts on his wrist, so when he tackles a little guy, the victim won’t be made unconscious, thereby saving Mummy from more weeks off suspended.”

BRISBANE v Port Adelaide “Power approached the Lions to rest Jonathan Brown for this game, saying it was in both clubs’ interests to find out ‘where they were really at’, without the undue influence of one of the code’s best players. But the Lions said they knew where they were.”

COLLINGWOOD v Hawthorn “There’s a kid down at Box Hill that’s better than any of the ones the Hawks have played so far this year. And his brother back on the farm is better than him.”

NORTH MELBOURNE v St Kilda “There were no scandals at St Kilda this week. Maybe I should change my tip!”

ROUND 18 2011

A planeload of out-of-work British tabloid journalists alighted in Melbourne last week, keen to scout new job opportunities in the ‘AFL Industry’ after a wee downturn in their Fleet Street fortunes due to intolerable legal intervention in. Encouraged by events upon their arrival – coaching rifts at a ladder-leading club; a $20,000 fine for a ten dollar bet; and a brave player being criticised for getting injured – the exiled scribes bunkered down at the Elephant and Wheelbarrow and planned their assault. “Hey, it’s not the News Of The World, more News Of The Arse End of The World, but this ‘footy’ stuff shows some promise, guvna!” said Harry The Hacker to his editor, Col The Troll. Persusing the local news, Col declared it ‘Stupid Week’ in the AFL .

SYDNEY v Western BulldogsPatsy won the sought-after Sin City gig after her spirited campaign to dirty up the goody-two-shoes image of ‘Bloods’ culture. “Those wimps have it easy up there, it’s time they were put inside the publicity goldfish bowl!”she exclaimed gleefully, scrawling down the names of some Kings Cross private detectives. “Stupidity is better kept a secret than displayed,” Col added sagely.

Gold Coast v COLLINGWOOD“What is stupidity?” Col yelled, holding up a picture of a contrite Heath Shaw. “GETTING CAUGHT!” his loyal minions yelled back, in unison. When the raucous laughter had died down, Kel signed up to cover the Suns, saying he had some contacts amongst shady Russian mafia real estate moguls on the Gold Coast. “Fresh meat,” he salivated, eyeing the clean-cut Suns squad.

Essendon v CARLTONRoger The Rogue had uncovered a protest planned by Essendon fans if umpire Razor Ray Chamberlain was assigned their game. “They want to hijack the MCG loudspeaker system and play Randy Newman’s ‘Short People’ when the refs come out on the ground. Then they are all going to be ‘demonstrative’, whatever that means.” Col said it best by saying “Egotism is the anaesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.”

GEELONG v Richmond

Filthy Phil won the hotly-contested Tiger beat with a talkback recording in which a caller claimed to have put his family’s Richmond memberships in the microwave following the Tiger loss to Gold Coast. “They’re playing with our emotions!” the breaking voice intoned to the chortling muckrakers, who then revelled in Filthy’s tales of poo-dumping, and other piqued Tiger fan gestures down the ages. Col : “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

The latest footy scandal that will destroy the fabric of Australian society has being revealed, with a leading AFL player openly stating that he tipped against his team. “We’d had a couple of tough games and six-day breaks, and I just thought we might drop one,” the Gen Y star admitted. “I’m two off the pace and I really want to beat that poncey accountant who’s leading my private comp.” The star denied that his tip altered the effort he put into the game, which his team won, but desire for tipping glory could cost him his career - tabloid columnists and federal politicians are demanding the AFL ban him for life. “There’s a time and a place for honesty, and in footy and politics it is never!” a flustered senator said, off the record. “This week its being honest about tips, tomorrow it will be Canberra travel expenses!” The senator is leading a campaign for players to be banned from publicly tipping the outcome of matches. Before the ban came into law, Pro-Tipping Preview sought the round 23 tips of eight anonymous AFL stars.

COLLINGWOOD v Fremantle The youngest footballer of the group admitted that he didn’t know anything about footy tipping, having never held a job, most tipping competitions being office-based. “You mean you just pick which teams are gunna win, that’s all there is to it?’

HAWTHORN v Western Bulldogs A star midfielder said that he had no issue with the supposedly “unsociable” Hawks. “Buddy’s cool, and the rest of their boys seem alright down at Eve...” The players then digressed into intense discussion of the coolest groups in the league, who were the biggest ‘tools’, and which players were on the most “coin”.

GEELONG v Sydney The punter of the group said that there had been an unexpected outcome from the Heath Shaw betting brouhaha. “No more Lucky Shop anymore, so I made one at home,” he said, pressing a concealed button to reveal his renovated garage, which was fitted out as a PubTab, with 27 TVs screening racing and sports from around the world. “No civilians in here, I’ve got the aromatherapy going, and we only hire glamours to work behind the jump! It’s sweet!”

ST KILDA v North Melbourne Now ensconced in the hidden PubTab, the players held earnest discussions about their off-season regimes. Most agreed that they would pay their own way to Guineas Day at the Heath, and the Turnbull Stakes meeting at Headquarters, but would weigh up marquee invitations amongst their leadership groups before deciding on final spring carnival schedules. “It’s a big issue in football, the tent you choose,” one veteran observed. “Get that wrong and you’ve lost the players before they even start pre-season.”

Brisbane v WEST COAST EAGLES One ex-country star pointed out that bush meetings were more laidback than the city races. “You just need your biggest meat-axe mate to ride shotgun in case pissed heroes want to king-hit you, then it’s sweet!” he claimed. However, even in the more obscure backwaters of the countryside, AFL footballers face sacrifices. “I’m just dying to have a go at the nude race after the last,” he said sadly. “But I spose I’ll have to wait until after I retire...”

ADELAIDE v Richmond Most of the gathered players had shares in racehorses, one wondering if it was a ‘conflict of interest’ to be a co-owner in a chestnut Gonski colt with the coach he was sure was about to delist him. “If he doesn’t win a city handicap this prep, he’ll beat me to the scrapheap.”

MELBOURNE v Gold Coast The consensus was that the Gold Coast was now a preferred destination for delisted players. “The surf’s the best, the bucks are good, the nightclubs are top-notch, the water used for recovery doesn’t freeze your brass monkeys, and the racing has gone past SA and Perth,” was typical of the sentiments.

ESSENDON v Port Adelaide One star, a fitness fanatic who weighs his food, and has been known to panic at the sight of an ice cream, said that if Chris Judd was ‘cooked’, then Port Adelaide had been boiled overnight, reduced to a jus, then dried and frozen, roasted and crushed. This leaves ‘Port Powder’, an almost tasteless garnish that is occasionally dusted on to successful desserts. The other seven players abused him for talking footy.